and japan famously has run deficits year after year. and it has a level of debt that is about twice what we've got as a share of gdp. and people have been predicting financial catastrophe for japan year after year for ten years or more. they've had downgrades. their debt was downgraded in 2002 by the major rating agencies. and everybody who believed those warnings and everybody -- has lost a lot of money. so it turns out that if you're an advanced country with its own currency and a reasonably stable government, you have a lot of running room on these things. so am i worried? yeah, i mean, i am worried about the u.s. fiscal situation 20 years from now. we do have a problem of health care costs and so on. but, you know, i'm worried about a lot of other things 20 years as well. i'm not sure that even if you take that long term perspective, that the budget should be at the top of your list of things to be afraid of. i'm a lot more afraid, actually, of the great -- the entire southwest of the united states turning into a dustbowl because of